


an ant asks a question

by Yuki1014o



Category: Original Work
Genre: Existentialism, Fairy Tale Style, Gen, Happy Ending?, Hopeful ending?, Minimalist Format, kind of, this isn't actually that depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27633812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuki1014o/pseuds/Yuki1014o
Summary: “I exist for the sun,” says the blade of grass, waving carefree in the breeze and sounding incredibly content. “Light hits my surface, and I feel every part of me come alive.”To the ant, that sounds very dull.“Is that really all?”“It is all that I know,” says the grass, and nothing more, no matter how much the ant asks.
Relationships: An Ant & Existence
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	an ant asks a question

An ant's purpose is to serve the queen. But that is not the purpose of the grass, or the butterflies, or the giants who extend so far she can’t see their end.

There is a large, seemingly endless world. She is only an ant, but she is curious. More than anything, the ant does not want to die having known nothing at all.

The ant stops in front of a blade of grass.

She is not entirely sure how one speaks to a blade of grass, or if a blade of grass could hear her at all, and thus she spends a full second in hesitation. “Excuse me,” She finally says, trying not to feel incredibly stupid, “but is there a reason you exist?”

“I exist for the sun,” says the blade of grass, waving carefree in the breeze and sounding incredibly content. “Light hits my surface, and I feel every part of me come alive.”

To the ant, that sounds very dull.

“Is that really all?”

“It is all that I know,” says the grass, and says nothing more, no matter how much the ant asks.

The ant looks around.

A butterfly lands atop a flower. He is a beautiful thing, patterned with deep blacks and royal amber. He has wings. Surely, then, he must have seen enough of the world to understand what she does does not.

The ant straightens up onto her hind legs in an attempt to appear taller.

“Excuse me!” She calls, hoping not to be irritating, and he peers down at her. “But—sir butterfly—is there a reason you exist?”

The butterfly looks at her for a long time, as if contemplating the worth of responding. He is a butterfly, after all, and she is only an ant.

“I exist for a cycle,” the butterfly finally says. “I will drink nectar, then it will get colder, and I will sleep. Once I wake, I’ll fly a distance longer than you can imagine, find a plant to lay my eggs, and my time will end.”

At that, the ant worries. “It will get colder?”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” says the butterfly, “you won’t live long enough to see it.”

“Oh,” the ant says, feeling all of a sudden cold. “I don’t quite understand. You exist to fly?”

The butterfly flutters his wings carelessly. “I exist to complete the cycle. Everything exists on a cycle.”

The ant knows nothing of the cycles he speaks of, but she has seen smaller cycles. An ant dies, new ants are hatched, those ants die, new ants are hatched—again and again.

To the ant, that sounds very dull.

“Is that really all?”

“It is all I know,” the butterfly says, and flies away before she can ask anything more.

 _Perhaps_ , the ant contemplates, _I am asking the wrong people_. _Perhaps I must ask someone larger, someone I myself cannot comprehend_.

Surely, then, one of the giants would hold answers. They eclipse the sky when teh step through, and they extend so far and large that surely they must understand everything there is to know.

And so, the ant travels to find a giant.

She climbs up the tallest thing she can find, stretches up to her hind legs and calls out, in the loudest voice she can manage: “Excuse me! I don’t know what you are, or what you are called, but why do you exist?”

The giant does not seem to notice.

The ant calls again, and again, and again, feeling progressively more foolish every time.

Just when she’s about to give up, the giant notices.

“Did...you just speak to me? You, the little ant on my picnic table?”

“Yes!” She cries. “I’m sorry for the trouble, but please, _please_ tell me—why do you exist?”

The giant is silent for a long, long, long time.

“I’m not sure,” says the giant. “Far greater men than me have tried and failed to find that answer.”

“Oh.” For the ant, this is endlessly confusing. After all, how could there be a being greater than the giant? “Well, can you tell me why _I_ exist?”

“I’m not sure,” says the giant, “I think you need to find that yourself.”

The ant thinks about that, but no matter how hard she tries, it proves an unsolvable puzzle. She cannot find an answer she likes.

“But you are large, so tall, surely you know more than I?”

“I am only human,” says the giant, after another long time. “I can’t know why an ant exists. Go ask another ant, they would know better than me.”

She has not asked other ants. They are ants, after all. And what does an ant know of existence?

But the giant is far larger than her, and must know best.

“Okay. I’ll try that. Thank you.”

“Good luck.”

The ant goes to find another ant. The other ant is struggling with a very large crumb.

“Excuse me,” she says, quickly shouldering half the crumb’s weight, “can I ask a question?”

“Anything!” Says the other ant. “Just as long as we keep on moving. People back home are hungry, so we must be quick.”

“Of course,” she nods, “I just—this may be kind of weird, but why do we exist?”

“I don’t understand your question,” says the other ant.

She thinks about the blade of grass, and the butterfly, and the giant. “The world is so large, and big, and I don’t understand it. In the face of that, I don’t feel like I matter.”

“Well that’s silly,” says the other ant, slowing down a bit in their march. “You came here and lifted half my load. You matter to me, and you matter to the colony, and you must matter to yourself. So of course you matter.”

“Oh.”

“We’re ants,” says the other ant, “we don’t need a reason to exist on any scale but our own.”

“Oh,” she says, again, and thinks she understands a bit better now.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a block on my nanowrimo creativity. So. Minimalist writing is fun. Very unfamiliar to me, though. I’m not a minimalist writer haha. This was, in part, inspired by my own making sense of the world, a conversation with a friend, and “The Ants” by exurb1a. (A very lovely audio piece on YouTube. It’ll only take three minutes to listen. I recommend it.)  
> It’s hard to concentrate on nanowrimo when I’m falling down fandom holes. Got into Centricide recently lol.
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read. If you enjoyed this, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. Constructive criticism is welcome, too. :)


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